Skinny Dipping (The Au Pairs 2)

"She's with Garrett now," Ryan said flatly. In that one sentence, Eliza knew that what she'd said was true. Ryan was definitely still in love with Mara.

Eliza looked at Ryan. She was closer to him now than she'd ever been. Maybe the term friends with benefits had a deeper meaning than either of them had realized.

"Well, we better go in before it gets any worse," Ryan said.

"And by the way, Mara and Garrett broke up," Eliza said. "I'm surprised your sisters didn't say anything. Aren't they totally hot for him?"

"Eliza, I don't even know how we're from the same family," Ryan joked.

They ran into the Home Depot--but all the steel braces, wood reinforcements, tarps, hurricane lamps, candles, batteries, space heaters, generators, rope, nails, and sandbags were gone.

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"What's going on?" Eliza demanded of a nearby foreman wearing an orange vest.

The foreman shrugged. "We got a big order," he said, waving toward a guy leaning against the counter and signing a huge credit card receipt. Garrett Reynolds looked up and waved at Ryan and Eliza.

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oscar wilde said,

"true friends stab

you in the front"

POPPY WAS STILL SEETHING ABOUT THE LOSS OF "HER"

car as she and Mara ran into the house to escape the battering winds.

"That is just so rude, I have never been treated so rudely. Do they know who I am?" Poppy whined as she struggled with her umbrella.

Mara was squeezing the water out of her wet hair when something bright and sparkly caught her eye. Something Poppy was wearing on her ears: Huge, fat rocks. Diamonds so big they pulled down on Poppy's earlobes and so clear and perfect they glittered in dull of the entryway.

"Poppy," Mara said, reaching out toward the earrings. "Where did you get those?"

Poppy's hands immediately fluttered to her ears. "Oh, these? Uh . . . I . . . borrowed them from your dresser. I lent you my handbag and I figured, you know, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine." She giggled shrilly. "Why?" She was totally acting

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like she and Sugar hadn't completely blown Mara off for the last couple of days, never mind that they had actually talked to Page Six about Mara and the earrings.

"Those aren't mine," Mara said, dumbfounded.

"They're not?" Poppy fluttered her wet eyelashes innocently.

"They belong to Ivan. They're worth a quarter of a million dollars. Haven't you read Page Six? You were quoted in it. People think I stole them."

Poppy feigned innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about. C'mon, let's go dry off. I'm freezing."

"Wait a second. I need them back," Mara said flatly, holding her hand out.

"Okay! Don't be such a wench about it. Jeez," Poppy said, pulling them out of her ears and brusquely laying them in Mara's hand.

Mara just stared at her. She had never met anyone so relentlessly self-centered, so aggressively selfish, in her entire life. And this was the kind of person she'd spent the whole summer trying to impress. It was sickening how much time she'd wasted.

"Now, Plum, don't be mad. I was just borrowing them!" Poppy said defensively.

"Don't call me that!" Mara hissed, elbowing her aside and heading for the phone.